Marijuana market opens up new job possibilities

Eli Sherman Wicked Local @Eli_Sherman

Monday

Oct 29, 2018 at 12:01 AMNov 7, 2018 at 5:08 PM

Pot shops and cannabis cafes may one day become the face of recreational marijuana in Massachusetts, but ancillary businesses -- those working behind the scenes -- are lining up today to try and capitalize off the budding industry.

The evidence was on full display Oct. 19 at the second Cannabis World Congress & Business Expo at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. Dozens of businesses from across the state, country and globe convened to trade ideas, create partnerships and celebrate the fast-growing medical and recreational market.

The businesses included a handful of growers and sellers, but most offered services many might not think about when considering the marijuana trade.

“We saw an opportunity,” explained Jody Goyette, program manager at Creative Service Inc.

The Mansfield-based company, which provides background tests, operated for nearly 40 years before tapping into the marijuana market in 2013.

Today, Creative Service does a fair amount of business in the industry, contracting with the state along with private firms to run background tests on individuals and companies. The business is poised to grow, as more marijuana companies receive licenses from the state and will be required to run yearly background checks on all employees in accordance with state law.

Creative Services is not alone. At least 11 Massachusetts-based companies at the expo offered services besides growing and selling cannabis products, including American Alarm in Arlington, which provides security systems.

Griffin Greenhouse Supplies in Tewksbury sells greenhouse equipment. Matter Communications in Newburyport is a public relations firm, and Neo-Advent Technologies LLC in Littleton is a pharmaceutical research and development firm.

“It’s similar to pharmaceuticals,” said Michael Dellogono, who does business development for Kanabolytix, a cannabis-testing subsidiary of Toxikon in Bedford.

Toxikon, which currently tests pharmaceuticals, has applied for a license through Kanabolytix to test medical marijuana. If approved, Dellogono said the company would become the largest medical testing facility in the state. Dellogono didn’t know of any immediate plans to tap into the recreational market, but taking the step from pharmaceuticals to cannabis made a lot of sense from a business point of view, he added.

“We see it as an opportunity to put people at ease because they will know everything is being tested properly,” Dellogono said.

In addition to ancillary businesses champing at the bit to make money off the growing industry, marijuana has also garnered the support of some familiar faces in the Massachusetts political scene.

“I won’t say I think alcohol is a nasty drug because I’ve had a long friendly relationship with it. However, I do think it’s nastier than marijuana and you can do yourself more harm quicker than you can with marijuana,” said former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who was elected as a Republican in 1990.

Weld, who ran as the Libertarian nominee for vice president in 2016, advocates for full federal legalization across the country, saying marijuana’s current designation as a Schedule 1 narcotic under federal law -- meaning it has no redeeming medical value -- is a farce.

“It is so untrue,” Weld said. “It really has no place on the schedule at all.”

The former governor says his support stems from fact-based studies that show marijuana could make a positive contribution to the field of medicine.

Weld, who was recently appointed to the board of advisors of Acreage Holdings, a New York investment firm with a portfolio of marijuana-related companies, dismissed concerns raised about whether the trade would ultimately be run by big-time players that so often dominate other industries.

“If Big Pharma or Big Tobacco want to come in and say, ‘We want to merge with you guys, or we want to scoop you up,’ that’s an investment,” Weld said. “It doesn’t mean they’re going to be the soul of the industry; it doesn’t mean they’re going to drive the industry.”

In Massachusetts, the concern that only those with deep pockets will benefit from the burgeoning market is exacerbated by complications related to the slow rollout of recreational marijuana.

The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission has been slow to approve the necessary licenses in part because of a sticking point at the local level. Businesses have complained about local governments making high demands in exchange for approving local agreements, which are required as part of the state licensing process.

The law allows municipalities to assess a local 3 percent sales tax, but one of the authors of the legislation, Rep. Mark Cusack, D-Braintree, says municipalities are using the local agreements as a workaround to demand more, and regulators are not providing enough guidance on the issue.

The dynamic, he said, will ultimate land the state in trouble, and work against those with less money.

“They’re going to get sued, or get the state sued, because what they’re setting up is a pay-to-play system where the company with the most money will be able to pay,” Cusack said.

Eli Sherman is an investigative and in-depth reporter at Wicked Local and GateHouse Media. Email him at esherman@wickedlocal.com, or follow him on Twitter @Eli_Sherman.